Is There a Europeanization of Turkish Foreign Policy? An Addendum to the Literature on EU Candidates

The beginning of Turkey’s accession negotiations with the European Union on October 3, 2005 constituted an important turning point for Turkey’s relations with the EU and for Turkish socio‐political transformation. This paper poses the following questions: (i) Is there a Europeanization of Turkish foreign policy as a result of Turkey’s accession negotiations with the EU? (ii) If so, then what are the main areas and limits in which Europeanization of Turkish foreign policy has occurred? This paper answers these questions by providing a background of Europeanization; first by differentiating between the member states and the candidate countries; second by analyzing the Europeanization of Turkish foreign policy through an investigation of the changes in Turkish foreign policy since 1999 with regards to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), NATO‐EU cooperation and Turkey’s Middle Eastern neighbors.